80 per cent mill workers who won lottery sold homes

Mumbai: A staggering 80 per cent of 10,000 mill workers who were provided houses under the Maharashtra Housing And Development Authority’s (Mhada) special housing scheme have sold their property immediately, according to complaints received by the authority.

According to the rules, these homes can only be sold 10 years from the day they were handed over to mill workers. The houses, which are worth over Rs 50 lakh each in the market, were given to mill workers — who hail from western Maharashtra and the Konkan region — for a few thousand rupees while they were allegedly sold for Rs 28-30 lakh.

Mhada will now physically inspect these properties to ascertain who is occupying them.

The authority had decided to develop homes on lands where mills once operated in order to house their workers. So far, nearly 1,78,000 mill workers applied for the same.

In 2012 and 2016, Mhada announced lotteries for 6,925 and 2,417 homes respectively in which a total of 10,000 mill workers won homes. The price for each home was fixed at Rs 4.5 lakh and Rs 7.5 lakh in 2012 and 2016 respectively.

An official said, “Mhada has found that many of the winners sold their homes for Rs 28 to Rs 30 lakh, which begs the question: Did they really need the homes?”

In its upcoming meeting, the Mhada will decide on the action to be taken against those who have sold their houses without waiting out the requisite time period. The authorities are also planning to reduce the 10-year time period to five years.

Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray recently held a meeting with Mhada chairman Uday Samant over various issues, including mill workers’ houses. During the meeting, Mr Thackeray demanded that the time limit for selling their homes be reduced, which mill workers’ unions have supported.

The authority recently announced a new lottery. “Multiple heirs of individual mill worker have applied. We are verifying their documents,” an
officer said.